Get your luke warm milk! Only $5 litre...

[Corey]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

It's true, usually it would be -20C or lower here. Today was about +4C. It was beautiful out. We have less than an inch of snow on the ground, ordinarily it would be a foot thick. My cat's profits are up by 13% this quarter.

[Dermot]

Milk is currently $16.40 for a 4 litre jug. Holy cow! That's insane. How could anyone afford that?

[Corey]

Not for nothing but here's the utility scene here in Cowtown. There are two of us here in this house and we barely use any electricity or water compared to most folks. Yet somehow the utilties for this month, a very warm month, were $450. That's not including phone or internet, just water/electric/gas. I can't imagine how working families are surviving here.

[Dermot]

$450 for one month, that is very high. and I thought Vancouver was expensive.

There are 6 of us and our hydro bill is around $120 every two months. We pay about $250 maintenance fees per month which includes heat and hot water and other things like maintenance, garbage collection, gardening, etc.

Why is it so high in Alberta? I know things are booming there, but....

[Corey]

The actual consumption was only like $250 but they tack on so much other crap it's unreal. Cost of living here is getting nuts. It's a nice place but I think it's about on par with Van at this point in terms of cost of living. Auto insurance here is amongst Canada's highest, same with our utility rates, fuel costs, rents, and tuitions.

On the other hand for entrepreneurs, the market is hot. It's one of those towns where you can line up money behind an idea very quickly and make things happen. There's just tons of money everywhere here. Particularly for oil industry service firms whether that be food trucks or webmasters, it's hopping. I wouldn't say it's Alberta though, Edmonton is just a terrible place to try and make things happen. My roomate was up there for christmas and he said it's like the walking wheel scene from Midnight Express. No one's working up there. You can hire a webmaster in Edmonton for $24K, here in Cowtown the best make over $70K. There's only three hours between here and there, but it's like stepping forward in time 30 years.

[Dermot]

There is always a down side to a boom. The cost of living goes up but not everyones income goes up.

The same energy boom is happening in nothern BC. Some of the towns up there cannot find enough workers and the wages are fantastic. A lot of people are going up from Vancouver to work for a year or two and then return with a load of money. There is nothing up there to spend it on so you would be saving most of your income. I would be almost tempted to go myself but I hate the cold.

[Corey]

Here's the name of the game in boomtown:
http://www.cbc.ca/calgary/story/ca-n...y20060116.html